Freedom loving democracies have proven very
good at winning wars, consistently exceeding the expectations of leftists, whose
instinct is to view Americans, Israelis and Britons as soft and gullible. The
truth is different. Democracies with broad spectra of opinions and beliefs represent
millions of individual hearts and minds. Reaching the painful decision to war
requires soul searching by these millions, but once that consensus forms, these
democracies are juggernauts.

The free democracies have had four chances
in the last sixty years to secure total victory after decisively winning a war.
Each time democracies hesitated. Each time democracies paid a higher price in
the following years. It is important - indeed, vital - that we not make this mistake
again.

In 1940, any sensible Frenchman understood that Britain could not
possibly continue to fight a flock of enemies that including not only the open
foes of Germany and Italy, but the secret hostility of Russia, Japan, Argentina,
Egypt, and a dozen other envious nations anxious for the British Imperialists
to get their comeuppance.

Events took a very different path. Britain recovered
its army at Dunkirk, sunk the French Fleet in Algeria, beat the vaulted Luftwaffe,
crippled the Italian fleet at Taranto, and routed the Italian Army in the most
lopsided victory between modern armies in the Twentieth Century. And this was
all in the last half of 1940.

After the end of the Second World War, after
the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan, the United States had the power
to virtually impose its will upon the rest of the world. Moreover, it had every
moral right to do so.

The French had collapsed with breathtaking ease in
1940, and even worse, they sat passively behind the Maginot Line while panzers
and the Luftwaffe savaged brave Poland. The Italians were unsympathetic to the
Fascists siding with the odious National Socialists, but they still fought beside
Hitler's forces. The Soviet Union played an important role in defeating Germany,
but this was not because Stalin wished to fight Hitler but rather because Hitler
attacked Russia.

The Soviet Union and France had not earned any "right"
to be permanent members of the Security Council or guarantors of world peace.
Canada and Poland had much stronger moral claims to those permanent seats than
France or Russia. Indeed, Italy had a stronger claim for membership on the Security
Council than France did. Histories gloss over what the Italians did in 1943: not
only did the Grand Fascist Council strip Mussolini of his powers and offices,
but Italy formally entered the war against Germany.

Communist apologists
and other leftists pretend that the Soviet Union, with its vast army and heavy
armor, was coequal in military power to the United States. In fact, Soviet power
was vastly weaker.

America naval and air power surpassed all the rest of
the world combined. The economic dynamo, which had already begun to shift to a
consumer economy before the end of the war, dwarfed all the other major powers
combined, and that is considering that its factories not only supplied all the
needs of the huge American armies, fleets and air forces, but built the ships
to carry supplies to Britain and Russia and supplied much of the military and
transport equipment used by both of these nations as well as food, oil, and other
valuable goods.

Beyond all this, until 1949 the United States had a complete
monopoly on atomic weapons and for an even longer period it had a monopoly on
the delivery systems needed to use these weapons. America could have reformed
the governments and the borders of every nation on Earth, had it chosen to do
so in 1945.

The decision not to do so cost the world decades of needless
wars, huge armament expenditures, enslavement of almost half of mankind, and the
psychic pain of the nuclear Sword of Damocles. America should have expended the
year or two of continued fighting to insure that only relatively free, peaceful
democracies existed in Europe and Asia.

Something like that, on a smaller
scale, happened twenty-two years later. Israel in 1967 utterly routed its Arab
neighbors. Today it is dumbfounding to consider all the nations at war with Israel
and how quickly Israel beat them all. Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
Sudan, Kuwait, Libya and Tunisia all sent military forces to fight Israel. Within
six days, Israeli tanks had open roads to Cairo, Damascus and Amman. Yet the Israeli
Defense Force stopped.

If there was ever evidence that all Israel really
wanted was peace, here was the proof. But was the decision to be lenient wise?
Probably not. If Israel had overrun Egypt, and maintained exclusive control (i.e.
both sides) of the Suez Canal, it would have given Israel vast leverage and much
cash in the following years.

If Israel had grabbed the water supplies and
oil fields, which were within its easy grasp in June 1967, it could not only have
paid for the costs of the IDF and protected Israel from threats to water supplies,
but diluted or broken the political threat of OPEC. Thirty-six years later, Israel
is still waiting for peace. Had Israel won total victory in 1967, there would
not be homicide bombers killing Jewish children today.

Twelve years ago,
American and coalition military forces had decisively defeated not only the most
battle-tested army on Earth, but the fourth largest army on Earth. Although everyone
agrees now that we should have deposed the Ba'athist thugocracy of Saddam Hussein,
it is useful to understand just how much was lost by that bad decision.

Iraq
occupied by coalition forces at that point in history would not be over the loud
objections of French and other European nations. They could have participated
in the establishment of a moderate Arab nation, and acquired a vested interest
in its success. A prosperous, relatively free Shia nation next to Iran would have
produced even more problems for the mullahs than they have today. Indeed, it is
difficult to see how the oligarchies of Teheran could have stayed in power.

If
Iran did try to "fill the power vacuum" by attacking Iraq, that would
have been met by American forces fighting beside Iraqi forces to liberate Iran.
This would have allowed the profound Persian cultural influence in Central Asia,
especially among the former Soviet socialist republics in that region, to be oriented
more toward America and western democratic values.

As we learn how little
Russia and China like us, influence with these new nations contiguous to both
those two behemoths would have been very valuable. The Iranian people, by 1991,
were quite sick of the corrupt and cruel mullahs. An independent Iran would have
been a priceless asset.

And, of course, stable and healthy governments in
Iran and Iraq would have kept the price of oil low, which in turn would have kept
the world for the recession (or, in some parts of the world, depression) that
may cause much more mischief in our future.

Now we stand at a crossroads
again. Syria is a rogue gang of terrorists, rather than a true nation. Iran is
an oppressive regime intent on acquiring nuclear weapons. North Korea will soon
have the power to incinerate a major Japanese city with impunity. Libya will do
all the mischief that it can, and if it acquires even a few nuclear weapons, that
means the ability to evaporate any large city in southern Europe in an hour. Cuba
remains a nightmarish regime with a dying megalomaniac.

Now is the time
to end the odious cliques ruling each of these five governments. Some actions
will be tricky. We cannot expect to conquer and occupy North Korea - it is enough
to end the reign of the paranoid child running that nation, and allow it to descend
into a nation within the recognized spheres of influence of China, Russia and
Japan.

Iran should logically fall from within, although American support
in every way short of ground invasion would insure that result. It would be enough
if we were able to have friendly relations with a growing Persian power, perhaps
resuming sales of American arms to the Iranian military (American arms are now
much more marketable than Russian or French arms, and our military advisors, technicians
and spare parts provide a link to America).

Cuba and Libya are fairly simply
exercises, much more direct and much less dangerous than Afghanistan or Iraq.
Purging decades of propaganda will be hard, but not impossible, and ending mischief
these two terrorist nations will greatly simplify our problems in the Arab world
and Latin America.

Syria will be complex peace keeping, but fairly direct
conquest. If Syria is conquered and occupied, then several terrorist networks
that keep the Palestinians in constant ferment can be quenched. Lacking any external
support, the murderers within the Palestinians will find it impossible to survive
long.

Will this make nations hate us? They hate us already. They must learn
instead to fear us. They must watch the Libyan and Cuban thugs cast out of power
and into their own prisons. They must see the pent-up anger of the tormented Iranian
people unleashed upon their indigenous tormentors and not the phantom scapegoats
of America and Israel.

What about the opinion of the graying sophisticated
nations? If they wish us to listen to Paris or Berlin or Tokyo or Moscow, then
the governments of these nations must stop trying to chip away at our well-earned
power and prestige. Then we will listen.

The democracies have had three
prior chances to turn breathtaking military victories into breathtaking geopolitical
realignments. This fourth time around, it was largely America against the world.
We won; the world lost. Like Israel, America cannot afford to lose a war. Now,
we cannot afford to lose a peace either. This time military victory must mean
total political victory as well.

Bruce Walker is
a senior writer with Enter Stage Right. He is also a frequent contributor to The
Pragmatist and The Common Conservative.